Scott Neuman

San Diego's embattled Mayor Bob Filner is ending his two-week program of sexual harassment therapy — a week early, according to his lawyers.

Filner, 70, has resisted calls for his resignation after acknowledging that he behaved inappropriately toward women over the years.

He will take "some personal time" and be ...

A confrontation between Protestants and Catholics in Belfast, Northern Ireland, erupted into violence overnight, injuring 56 police officers and two civilians.

"Belfast's main shopping district was turned into a battlefield last night as thousands of loyalists clashed with riot police to prevent a republican dissident rally passing down the city's ...

U.S. trade officials have ruled that South Korea's Samsung infringed on patents owned by Apple for specific smartphone features, ratcheting up a tit-for-tat legal battle between the two electronics giants that is matched only by the ferocity of their marketplace competition.

Bloomberg says the patent dispute is over

After Obama proposed reforms to some surveillance programs run by the NSA, the Justice Department issued a long-awaited white paper (pdf) on the legal reasoning for the bulk collection of telephone records.

Much of it centers around Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which authorizes the warrantless ...

A Mexican court has thrown out the conviction of infamous drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, 28 years after he was convicted and imprisoned for the 1985 kidnapping and murder of U.S. DEA agent Enrique Camarena.

Quintero had been serving a 40-year sentence for torturing and killing Camarena, but the court ...

President Obama, appearing Friday for his first news conference in more than three months, will no doubt be fielding tough questions on a new round of revelations regarding the NSA's top-secret electronic surveillance programs.

Earlier this week, Obama, appearing on The Tonight Show, denied that the U.S. runs "a ...

Time to stretch out the lawn chairs, lie back and enjoy the once-a-year celestial show known as the Perseid meteor shower.

The Perseids, the dusty debris of Comet Swift-Tuttle, whisk through our upper atmosphere every August. They aren't the only meteor shower on the calendar, but "the Perseids are the ...

Four decades ago, Ho Van Thanh fled the fighting in his native Vietnam, disappearing into the jungle with his infant son, Ho Van Lang. This week, father and son emerged for the first time — an enfeebled Thanh carried in a stretcher, and Lang wearing only a loincloth made of ...

A Yemeni official says a total of 12 suspected al-Qaida militants have been killed in the Arab country in three separate U.S. drone strikes on Thursday.

The Associated Press quotes the official as saying that the first drone attack killed six alleged militants in central Marib province, while the second ...

A Maine shipyard where an employee set fire to the USS Miami will get $54 million to scrap the nuclear submarine after the Navy decided the damage from the blaze was too great to justify repairs.

The Los Angeles-class attack submarine, which cost $900 million when it was commissioned ...

This post last updated at 3:55 p.m. ET:

A federal grand jury has indicted two men on charges of obstruction of justice related to the Boston Marathon bombing investigation.

The U.S. Attorney's office for Massachusetts made the announcement on Thursday against two students from Kazakhstan, Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, ...

Our nearest star is about to pull a once-in-11-years move by swapping its north and south magnetic poles.

The sun's polarity switch is a natural part of "solar max" — the period of peak activity during what averages out to be roughly an 11-year cycle. According to NASA, this year ...

The Smithsonian's National Zoo has announced the birth of a pair of Sumatran tigers, a species that has dwindled to less than 500 in the wild. Both mother and cubs are reportedly doing well.

There was no immediate word Thursday on the sex of the cubs.

Four-year-old Damai gave birth ...

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has called elections for Sept. 7, setting the stage for a parliamentary contest that he says will determine the future of the country's economy.

Rudd's challenge comes just six weeks after he wrested control of the Labor Party from Prime Minister Julia Gillard. He faces ...

HAL 9000 he's not. But Kirobo, the first-ever talking robot in space is heading to the International Space Station this week ahead of his human companion, Japanese astronaut Kochi Wakata, who takes over as ISS commander in November.

The robot, whose outward appearance was inspired by the cartoon character ...

Ron Hosko, the assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division, tells NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday that the Internet has become a key tool for recruitment of child prostitutes and that cutbacks at the federal and local levels have made it harder to clamp down on the problem.

A speeding car plowed through a crowd at Los Angeles' popular Venice Beach boardwalk, killing one person and injuring 11 others before he fled the scene. The driver apparently surrendered to police later.

The Associated Press reports that security video shows the driver of the black Dodge initially parked his ...

Update At 4:40 p.m. ET:

State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki says Sunday that the embassy and consulate closures will be extended:

In a statement, Psaki says the decision was taken "out of an abundance of caution" and the it was "not an indication of a new threat stream, merely an ...

Hassan Rouhani, Iran's newly elected president, is being sworn-in on Sunday, succeeding the controversial Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose focus on the country's nuclear program proved a constant source of tension with the West.

Rouhani, 64, is viewed as a moderate and has pledged greater openness on the country's nuclear program. ...

Zimbabwe's longtime President Robert Mugabe has been declared the winner in elections that give him another five-year term. But the opposition says the vote was rigged.

Mugabe won by 61 percent, with his main challenger, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, trailing far behind in the official results from the July 31 ...